If you're here for the first time, our message this morning is going to be a little bit different than normal. Normally, what we do is we open up the Bible and we ask God to teach us amazing things for our life. We love to study the word together as a church. The Bible is not boring. There are people who teach the Bible in a boring way, and there are boring people who teach the Bible, but the Bible in and of itself is the furthest thing from boring because there have been whole whole countries and whole nations who have banned the Bible and burned the Bible, and they don't burn or ban boring things. So we love to open up God's word and say, Lord, teach us something. And next week we're going to start a new series called Resurrected. We're going to begin going through Ephesians chapter 2. And I really want to encourage you to be here for that because when you hear the word resurrected, you might think, oh yeah, Jesus, but no, we're actually going to be talking about us. Because according to Ephesians chapter 2, it's us who have been resurrected as well. That we've actually moved from death to life when we've given our lives to Jesus. So we're going to talk about that next week. Today, we're doing something that we actually don't do very often as a church. We're going to take a few minutes, we're going to take a little bit of time and actually talk about our church. This isn't something that we normally do. We love to talk about Jesus. We don't spend a lot of time talking about ourselves, but every once in a while it's really important for us to get together and make sure that we understand where we are and where we're going. And so for the last few weeks, I've been talking about today and calling it mid-year because we're halfway through. I know there are some of you who are sticklers and you're like, actually, technically the midway point of the year was a few weeks ago, and I get it. But generally speaking, we're at the halfway point. We're halfway done. That phrase, we're halfway done, that's kind of a loaded phrase because it can be really positive in some senses, it can be really negative in others, right? It depends on what you're doing. If you're doing something you hate, something that's making you miserable, and you realize you're only halfway done, that's the worst. As a kid, I was born in Springfield, Missouri, and then we moved a lot. We moved to Wisconsin, we moved down here. It seemed to be anywhere that we moved was always a 12-hour drive back home. And so several times a year, we would make a 12-hour drive back home. And, you know, I love my parents, and they may be here right now. I love you, mom and dad. And I and I loved, I loved the time that we had together in those car rides. It was meaningful time. But it was hard. It was hard because it was 12 hours, which is a long time to be in a car, period. And every time the same thing would happen. My mom would buy a new CD, and it would be a greatest hits compilation of one of her favorite artists. An artist that she and my father loved. They typically were from the late 60s and the 70s. And so I have an unusual understanding and an unusual knowledge of bands like Three Dog Night and The Grassroots and Fleetwood Mac and James Taylor and all these bands, and that's fine. I'm glad, but when you're 13 and it's 1996, you don't want to be an expert on Fleetwood Mac, okay? And so my mom, she would buy these greatest hits compilations and she would play them, and she'd be so excited, and she and my dad would get to talking, and they would just let the same, the same CD play the entire trip. Like the entire trip. The worst offender, the worst, the one that made it just made me want to be done with like life, to be honest with you, was it was Jim Croce. You guys know who Jim Croce is? Jim Croce was a singer-songwriter, and uh my mom loved Jim Croce, and you know, I respect his musical talent and ability, but man, 12 hours of Jim Croce. If you've never heard of Jim Croce, if you're young enough, you never even like heard a song of his. Pretty, pretty chill dude. Like this is put you to sleep type of music, okay? All right, he had a couple of songs, he had a couple songs that were upbeat, and the way the CD my mom had was the there was one upbeat song at the beginning and one upbeat song at the end, and then the rest was just like the most boring music you could possibly imagine from my perspective. There was this one song that that when I heard this song for the fourth time on a trip, I was like, oh Lord Jesus, what have I done to deserve this? And actually, we have it kind of cued up, guys. Go ahead and play this and just understand this is six hours into a drive. I could save time in a bottle. And I've heard it five times. It's horrible. It's horrible. You guys can stop that. 12 hours of that, it makes you want to pull your hair out, you know? And so I remember there there being trips, and we're driving, and it's 12 hours, and we're listening to Jim Croce, and the fourth time that time in a bottle comes on, I'm like, hey, mom and dad, how far are we away? They're like, we're about halfway done. I'm like, are you serious? Like, I never thought I'd say this, but please put Fleetwood Mac on. Please. Anything but this. If you're doing something that's hard, being halfway done, that's a big negative. But if you're doing something great, if you're doing something you enjoy and you realize you're only halfway done, it's a whole different thing. And I want to say this we're only halfway done with this year. And I'm not talking Jim Croce halfway done. Okay? We're only halfway done. There's never been a year in the history of our church where halfway through the year I was like, we've got to stop and shed some light on what God has done so far this year. It's never happened before. It's never happened that midway through the year, I'm like, we've got to stop and realize what's happening. Sometimes at the end of the year, I'm like, wow, look at what God's done. We've got to talk about this, but I'm saying six months into the year, I don't think there's ever been a year where we've seen God do as much as he's done this year, and we're only halfway done. There's never been a year in the history of our church where we've had the kind of impact in our community like we've had this year, and we're only halfway done. If I reround the clock back to January, we talked together and we said that it was time for his hands to stop being our name and to start being our identity. That it's time for us as a church to get going. And so we added the word go to our to our vision statement. It's time for us to go. It's time for us to go out from this place, it's time for what God is doing in this place to leave this place and start affecting our community and beyond. It's time for us to go hands-on because we cannot call ourselves his hands if we're not hands-on in this community. Because we serve a God who's hands-on. Jesus shows us that. It's God going hands-on with our lives. And so at the beginning of the year, we said, this is the year his hands becomes his hands. It's time for us to go. And guys, we have been going. In January, we launched a partnership with an amazing ministry in Guatemala, 250 kids that live in extreme poverty, 250 kids that live in an extremely dangerous part of Guatemala City, and they need our help. And in one Sunday, in one Sunday, you guys sponsored 250 children in Guatemala. You're providing food for them, you're providing education for them, you're literally changing their lives. We had our first ever mission trip, our first group of volunteers from our church go and work with those children just a few months ago. That's how it all got started. That was our first go moment. And it just picked up from there. In March, we had our first ever hands-on community day. And several of us met here on a Saturday and we prayed together. Then we went out from this place and we went to Goshen Valley Boys Ranch and we worked on their property. We did landscaping, we painted. Some of us went to the Never Alone food pantry and we put on an Easter egg hunt and did face painting for these amazing kids who live in really desperate situations. So not only could they come and get some food, but they could come and have an amazing time and have a treat for their life. Some of us went to a veteran's home in our community and we remodeled the veterans' bathroom. Some of us went to a ministry called the Turnaround Kids, who we love to work with. They're amazing people. And we built this incredible play fort, this like treehouse monstrosity, because it's a family that's taken in over 70 kids over the last few years. And at any given time, they've got 20 to 30 kids, and so we needed to build something that 20 kids can play on at once. And that is like an engineering nightmare. Thankfully, we had an engineer get involved. What's up, Bob? He just went like that. He's in the back. And we got to go out from this place and go hands-on in our community and make a real impact in a lot of people's lives. In June, we launched our summer lunch program. And we've got just a few days left in that because school starts back this Wednesday. We said, hey, there's a lot of kids that rely on free and reduced lunch to have a guaranteed meal. But in the summer that goes away. And so we partnered with Must Ministries and we began to provide lunch to children in our community every single weekday, every Monday through Friday, all summer long, we have provided lunch to hundreds and hundreds of children. And I'll give you guys some statistics on how summer lunch went real quick, because this is pretty crazy. The total number of days that we served lunch, 45. Okay? This is since June. 45 days that we've been serving lunch. Do you know how many pounds of lunch meat we have distributed? 1,500 pounds. Arby's has that phrase, we have the meats. We do. We do. It's amazing. You know how many volunteers it took every single week to pull summer lunch off? 185. Every single week. We had one person donate 897 loaves of bread this summer. One person. I had to make two announcements or three announcements, something crazy like that, just for volunteers and for you to bring donations. Shelby, who's the person on our staff who ran it, she actually came to me about three weeks ago. She said, Justin, could you please tell people to stop bringing supplies? Never in my life have I had someone on our team say, Hey, could you tell people to stop helping? Isn't that crazy? Like, stop it. Stop being so amazing. Stop being so generous. And I told Shelby, no. I refuse to give that announcement. And you guys donated so much that we were able to have this huge surplus. And this last week we drove that surplus to the Cherokee Family Violence Center, and they are stopped. Like they are stopped. It's awesome. All in all, this is this is the coolest part. All in all, we provided 10,300 lunches this summer. And what's funny is when I first heard that number, I was disappointed because the projection we had at the beginning of the summer was like 14,000. That was based on projections provided to us by the communities we were going to, but the actual number of kids that were receiving lunches wasn't what they projected. But that's what I thought. And so I was like, 14,000, that's exciting. And I heard 10,300. I was like, 10,300? That's kind of dinky. Like, dang it. And then I'm like, if you would have told me in January that we could provide lunch to 10,000 kids, like, are you serious? 10,000 lunches on year one? Next year we gotta we gotta go bigger. You know? And how incredible is that? And and you guys did that. That was God working through you. That wasn't some giant push that we had to make. You guys responded. You went hands-on. In June, we had a group of high school students go on a road trip. We had 24 students go all in with Jesus. 24 students give their whole lives to Jesus. That was amazing. And we had we had several kids that could not afford to go on this trip, and you guys stepped up and you provided the the funds that were needed for that. So every student got to go. Just this summer, we've had 43 people get baptized here at His Hands. 43 people have gone all in with Jesus. And again, it's not like we're making a big push for this. I'm gonna talk about why this is happening here in a second, but suffice it to say, it's God. God is moving people, God is doing things. It's unprecedented, it's amazing. He is working. And there is so much more that is that is coming down the pipeline. There's so much more happening throughout the rest of this year and beyond. There's already things that God has lined up, things that a few years ago, if you would have told me that these things would even be possible, I'd be like, really? And they're already on the schedule for next year. I mean, just tonight is like where the next phase starts. Tonight there's a gathering called Power and Unity in downtown Woodstock. Over 30 churches in Cherokee County coming together to worship God as one church. And we're part of that. So be in downtown Woodstock tonight. It starts about 5:30. Get there earlier if you if you hope to find a parking spot anywhere near, and just be ready to walk if you can't, because it's gonna be powerful. That's tonight. In August, we've got the one race movement that we're part of. I know that many of you guys are gonna end up volunteering and be part of that, but for all of us, just come and we're gonna go to Stone Mountain, Georgia, which has forever been associated with racism, and we're gonna reclaim it in the name of Jesus. And we're gonna bring racial reconciliation and revival to that place because over 30,000 Jesus followers are gonna gather together, and we're part of that. In September, we're putting on an event called Canvas, and it's an event we've done every year for the last several years. We raise a lot of money to help a needy family in our community. It's gonna be amazing. In October, we have another hands-on community day. We're going to the Cherokee Family Violence Center. We're gonna be doing a lot of work there. It's gonna be incredible. In November, we're having a Parents Night Out for all you parents, right? That's exciting if you have young kids. But this one's gonna be different. Because we're gonna change the name from Parents Night Out to Parents' Night Outreach. And yes, if you have young kids, you can take advantage of it, but we wanna open this up to the community. We want to reach people through this event that we've never been able to reach before and invite you to invite others to take part in this. For them to have an experience where they walk into a church, and the very first thing that they they experience is the church saying, Hey, can we help you with something? In December, we're gonna be part of Christmas Angels again, and it looks like we're gonna have more kids than we've ever had before by a long shot. Like God is moving. We said at the beginning of the year that it's time for us to become his hands, and I'm telling you, this is what it looks like to be his hands. It's powerful. And guys, this doesn't even include the financial contributions that we've been able to make. So far this year as a church, we've been able to give away over $120,000 to organizations in our community, to people in need. Some of the stories, I don't have time to get into it, but some of the stories of people's lives, the way they've been impacted by your generosity, it's amazing. And I do want to take a second at this moment and say thank you to those of you who serve and to those of you who give. I want to say thank you to those of you who contribute to this place. Because the reality is we we enjoy what we contribute to far more than we enjoy what we consume. And so often we look at church as something that we need to consume. And yeah, it's for us, but when we begin to contribute, when we serve, when we give, we stop being consumers, we become contributors, and it takes on a whole new meaning. And if not for your generosity, we couldn't do things like that. And so, to those of you who give, keep it up. And if this is your church and you don't give, I want to challenge you to do that. I'm serious, I want to challenge you too. There's three words that begin with P that always guide me with that. I like I like alliteration, it's like one of my favorite things. And so, number one, pray, because it's between you and God. You're never gonna hear us tell you how much to give. We don't believe in that. Number two, it's a percentage. That's a biblical concept. Pray, say, God, give me a percentage. And God might tell you 0.02% of your income and go, okay, cool. And God might tell you 25% of your income. No, He's not gonna lay a burden on you that you can't bear. He doesn't do that. But if you pray and you say, Lord, show me a percentage, and then the third word, persistence, if you do it every month, you will see God bless you through that and you will see an impact through that. So I want to thank those of you who have been doing that. I want to challenge the rest of us to do it because the more, I mean, how amazing would it be if at the end of the year I could say, hey, we gave away a quarter of a million dollars this year to people in need. Like that, that can happen. And honestly, we should probably think bigger than that, because that can happen realistically. That's not even like a God thing. So so we need to we need to ask God what he wants us to do because I believe he wants us to do even more. So those of you who serve, thank you for for serving. To those of you who pray, keep praying. Your prayers are powerful because God is moving, because God is lining things up, things are happening. I don't know if you guys have felt it or not, but in the last few months, there's like a different spirit in this place, there's a different atmosphere in this place. And if you haven't felt it, then I pray that you feel it today because God is doing something. And for the next few minutes, I want to talk about not what's happened or what's going to happen. I want to talk about why it's happening. Because I want you guys to understand something. We all need to understand this as a church. What we're seeing happen through our church right now, the movement of God that we're seeing, it's not us. This isn't man-driven. I know what it's like to try to make God do things. It's hard. I know what it's like to try to try to force it. I know what it's like to sit in a meeting room with a whiteboard and try to brainstorm and out of our own flesh come up with ideas that we think will really move the church forward. Those don't work. I've had a lot of those ideas, those don't work, but it's it's something altogether different when God is the one leading the way. I'm telling you guys, God is leading the way right now. I believe He's pouring new wine on our church. I believe that God is doing something new in this place. That there's a new thing that's happening, and it's just beginning. We just sang that song New Wine, and for those of you who who haven't heard that phrase before, I'm gonna show you where that's at in scripture. It's in it's in Luke chapter 5, verses 33 through 39. It says, one day some people said to Jesus, John the Baptist's disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking? Jesus responded, Do wedding guests fast while celebrating the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. And then Jesus gave them this illustration. No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment, for the new garment would be ruined, and the and the new patch wouldn't even match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, for the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins, but no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. The old is just fine, they say. So what's happening is these people are coming up to Jesus and they're criticizing him for his choice in disciples. It was common in that day for Pharisees and rabbis to have disciples. And usually they would choose hyper-religious people who were like the cream of the crop, you know, the good people. And Jesus didn't choose the good people, Jesus chose people. The story that takes place just before this conversation, Jesus calls a man named Matthew to be his follower, and Matthew was a man that the Pharisees and the religious leaders would have despised. The word they used to describe Matthew and his friends was scum. And so Jesus recruited some scum on his team. And they're like, What are you doing? And what they're really saying is, Jesus, if you really wanted to do something big, you would have picked us. Jesus, if you really knew what you were doing, you'd pick us, you'd pick the good people. And Jesus says, You're old wineskins. You're rigid. You're stiff, you're set in your ways. And you love the old. You love the old way, and I'm doing something new. I'm bringing a new covenant. I'm pouring new wine on this earth, and you're not ready to receive what I'm doing because you can't receive the new. You're so stiff, you're so hard, you believe so firmly that you're right and that you know everything you need to know, that there's no way you can receive what I'm doing because it's so new it would break you. And so I need some people who are humble. I need some people who are flexible. I need some people who are new wineskins. See, in those days they would they would put wine into wineskins to store it, but but wine expands, it ferments. And so if you put wine in a new wineskin, that that wine's gonna expand, but that skin that's loose and can stretch, it's gonna expand with the wine. And eventually, though, that that skin's gonna stretch to its capacity and then it's gonna get hard and rigid. And if you were to pour that wine out and put new wine in that old wineskin, it has no more room to grow. And it's gonna explode. And you're gonna ruin everything. And that's what Jesus is saying to these people. He's saying, hey, no offense. He didn't actually say that. Jesus was okay offending people, actually. He was really okay with it. He said, offense intended, um, y'all a bunch of old wineskins. And I'm doing a new thing, and you can't receive it. But these people, because they're humble, because they're broken, because they're messy, and they admit it. We say all the time that our church is a church that loves messy people. Because they're humble and open, they're ready to receive the new thing that I'm doing. See, God, God loves to do new things, He doesn't always have that reputation. But make no mistake, God's always doing something new. That's why sometimes we get frustrated when we read the Bible and we see a miracle. We're like, God, I want to see you do that. And God's like, I don't want to do that again. I did it already. I want to do something new. God loves to do new things. We see it all the time in Scripture. In Isaiah 43, 19. God speaks to the prophet Isaiah years before Jesus. He says, I'm about to do something new. See, I have already begun. Do you not see it? I would say that about our church. God has begun to do something new. Do you see it? He's already got it started. He says, I'll make a pathway through the wilderness, I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. Ezekiel 36, 26, God says, I'll give you a new heart and I'll put a new spirit in you. I'm gonna do something new in the hearts of people. 2 Corinthians 5, 17. This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone, a new life has begun. And even at the end, Revelation 21, verse 5. And the one sitting on the throne said, Look, I am making everything new. I am making everything new. Do you need something new in your life today? Like, seriously, are are you here this morning? And are you stuck? Are you tired? Are you burned out? Do you need God to do something new? You know, maybe you're here and you're hearing us talk about all the things that God is doing, and you're like, this is awesome. This is so exciting. But maybe you're here this morning, you're like, hey, it's great that things are going so well. It's awesome to see all the lives that are changing, but my life feels like it's stuck. And if that's you this morning, what I want you to know is that God loves you. He loves you so much and he wants to do something new. He wants you to experience something you've never experienced before. He wants to put a new spirit in you, he wants to give you a new heart, he wants to do a new work so that you become a new person. If you've ever heard the phrase God loves you exactly as you are, and He just wants you to be yourself, you've been lied to. The best lives they're half truths, right? The truth is God loves you exactly as you are, and He wants to Change everything. Everything. He wants to make you a new creation. He wants to give you a new heart. He wants to give you a new spirit. He wants to restore what's on the outside, but he wants to put a whole new engine under the hood in your life. Because God makes everything new. He loves doing new things. And if you're here this morning and you're like, hey, it's awesome that God's doing a new thing in our church, but but what about in my life? I want the new thing for me. How do I experience the new thing? How do I experience a new chapter in my life? The answer is to be a new wineskin. You see, God's intention, his heart, his will is to do something new in your life. That's why we're seeing new things happening right now in our church. I believe our church is like a new wineskin. I think I think we're open. I think we're unique in that we can raise our hands as a church and say, you know what? I'm kind of a mess. Anyone raise your hand with that? You know what? I don't have it all figured out. I don't have all the answers. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm your pastor. I don't know what I'm doing, people. I don't know. But I know that he does. And the day that I believe, I know what I'm doing is the day that you should leave this church and go somewhere else. But he knows what he's doing. And so I'll listen to him. See, when we're new wineskins, when we're fresh, when we're open, we experience the new. But that's hard for us, right? Like, let's be honest about that for a second. We we don't like the new all the time. We like the sound of new. But we don't we don't always go for the new. We'll go back to verse 39 in Luke 5. No one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. The old is just fine, they say. Don't you love how Jesus has a way of just cutting right to the heart of the human spirit with a few words? He says so much with so little. That's like the opposite of me. It's almost like he made us or something, like he knows us that well. You know that that phrase, that's that's that's so true to humanity. The old is just fine. Think about how often we resist the new. Like, you ever have a restaurant that you love and you go there and they change the menu completely? Like, how many of us, when that happens, when you go to that restaurant you've been to 50 times and they have a whole new menu? How many of us are like, thank you for changing everything? Thank you so much. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to relearn your menu and to experience new things. Anyone have that reaction? You get excited, look at you. Yeah, raise your hand with pride, your new wineskins. I mean, don't become proud, but you know, good for you. You're better than the rest of us. How many of us are like, you ruined it? You ruined it. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. Right? Because we like the old. We don't even change things that we know need to be changed and we even want to change, we still don't change them. How many of you right now have a pillow at home that is way past its prime? Come on. And like, what do you do? You fold it in half just so it can support the weight of your head? Go buy a new pillow. They're not hard to find, they're not even that expensive. Just go to Target. I pray that when I'm gonna go to Target after the service today, and I want to see their pillow section cleared out. I want to see them gone. I just want to know, okay, something happened today. People exchange the old for the new. We don't like to change, even when we even when we know we need to. And by the way, I have an amazing suggestion for you. If you want to see the human spirit's resistance to change, become a pastor and change something in church and watch what people do. It's awesome. We don't like to change. We we are adverse to change, but God is not. Because God loves to do something new. And if you want to experience something new, if you want to see your life transformed, not improve. I think we have this tendency in church to talk about how God can improve our lives, but God does not want to improve your life, he wants to change it. God does not want your life to get three degrees better. God wants your life to be completely new, completely transformed. And that happens when we say, God, I'm open to you. I'm a new wineskin, Lord. Change me. That's what I pray our church keeps praying, Lord, we're open to you. We are new wineskins. What do you want to do? Change anything. You change the name of our church, change the color of the walls, change everything, Lord. We won't hold on to a thing. When that's the attitude of our heart, we experience the new. I want to leave you with three prayers. Three prayers that if you will pray this on a regular basis, if you will make this a normal part of your prayer life, and if you don't even really pray, this is a great way to start. Sometimes, even as Christians, we struggle with praying. Like, what do I pray? Oh God, thank you for things. Like, you know, I watch my kids pray at night, and it's funny because all the kids want to pray, it's like a competition at the dinner table. They raise their hand, but then some of them are like, oh no, I didn't think this through. Because then when it's time to pray, they're like, they blink. Uh God? Like, are you there? Well, here's three things to pray, and here's the beautiful thing. You've already prayed these three things this morning. Like through worship, you've already prayed these three things. We sang a song called New Wine. And it's it's crazy because so far this year I've had at least 30 conversations with people, and I've said it's like God is pouring new wine on our church. Things are happening. And that's before I heard this song. And so I heard the song for the first time three months ago, or three weeks ago, rather. So for months I've been saying this. Three weeks ago I hear this song, and I'm like, oh my gosh, we have to sing this song. Because this is our church. God is pouring new wine on our church. I've been saying this. He's doing something new. And in this song that we just sang, we're gonna sing it again. There's there's these three statements, and if we'll pray this, if you'll pray this in your life, you will experience the new thing. Number one, it's make me your vessel. Make me your vessel. That's a reference to 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 20. Now, in a large house, there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the master, prepared for every good work. What God is saying here is hey, if you will empty yourself of anything, anything that takes your attention away from God, anything that keeps your focus on the things of this world, if you will empty yourself of those distractions, the Lord will fill you. He will fill you to whatever capacity you make room. He will fill you, and you will be a vessel, a vessel that is sanctified. That means made perfect, useful to the master, prepared for every good work that he has for you. If you want to experience the new thing, if you want to be a new wineskin, pray, Lord, make me your vessel. When I go to work this morning, make me your vessel. When I interact with my family, make me your vessel, speak through me, work through me. Number two, make me an offering. Romans 12, 1. And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he's done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind that he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. I love the way the message version puts it. So here's what I want you to do: God helping you. Take your everyday, ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life, and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Lord, make me an offering. If you've ever wondered what God wants, he wants you. He wants you. If I ever talk with someone and they say something like, I'm I'm nervous to just give my life to God because I feel like God's gonna like, he's gonna ask me for something. I'm like, oh no, no, let me let me put your fears at rest. He's not gonna ask you for something, he's gonna ask you for everything. Because he wants all of it. And by the way, what percentage of your life would you rather be in control of versus God? Like seriously. What percentage of your finances, what percentage of your time, what percentage of your focus and your energy would you rather you take control of rather than God? He's gonna ask you for everything and just make yourself an offering. Say, Lord, make me an offering. Let me see everything that I have as belonging to you, Lord. Let me see everything that I have, every bit of time, my talent, my resources, my energy, everything that I have, my thoughts, Lord, they're yours. Use them. I give them to you. Make yourself an offering, and you'll be a new wineskin. Ready for the new thing that God wants to do, ready for the new wine that He wants to pour inside you. Number three, make me whatever you want me to be? This one challenges me greatly. Isaiah 45, 9. What sorrow awaits those who argue with their creator? Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, Stop, you're doing it wrong? Does the pot exclaim, How clumsy can you be? I was praying a few nights ago, and uh and I got convicted big time. And it was this very thing. I was trying to control a situation, my flesh likes control. And so when something feels like it's stressful, I just shift and I start, I start trying to control things, talk myself out of it, talk myself into it, talk other people out in that kind of thing. And I'm praying, I'm like, Lord, something's not right. I I know that I'm not operating out of my spirit, I know that I'm not doing what you're calling me to do. I'm just trying to like fix something. And I'm sorry, Lord, my intentions are right, but I'm not going about it the right way. And I and I I felt the Lord tell me, You're playing chess. And I'm like, Yes, I am. I'm playing chess. I'm anticipating, I'm trying to make the next move. And then God said, You're just a piece on the board. And I'm like, Oh, am I king? Huh? No? Okay. No, you're just a piece on the board. You're supposed to let me move the pieces. And I had to surrender to that because it's exactly what he's saying here. Look, does the clay have any right to say to the to the potter, you're doing it wrong? I want to be, I want to be a coffee mug. You know, I want to be a bowl. Lord, Lord, make me like this. How many times in my life have I advised God? How many times in my life have I have I tried to get God to buy into my dream? How many times have I tried to tell God what would be best for Him to do in my life? Hey, hey, God, hey God, let me give you some advice. Let me give you a suggestion, Lord. If you just listen to me for a second, I got a plan, I want to I want to sell you on my plan. And what would happen if I stop doing that and I say, God, throw my plan in the garbage. What do you want? You're the potter, I'm the clay. You do what you want. I'm gonna stop trying to get you to be involved with what I'm doing, Lord. I want to become involved with what you're doing. So I surrender, Lord. Make us whatever you want us to be. Make each of us whatever you want us to be. If those three things will dominate your prayers, make me a vessel. Your vessel, God, make me an offering, make me whatever you want me to be. You will experience new wine. I'm excited about what's happening in this church. I'm excited about what God is doing through this church. But today's a lot more than just a rally cry of, hey, hey, look at us, look at what God's doing. It's about what's God doing in you? What do you need Him to do in you? Do you want new wine? Or is the old just fine? Do you want a new way? Do you want a new spirit, a new heart? Do you want a new perspective? Do you want a new way of thinking? Do you want a new outlook on life? Or is the old just fine? Hunger for the new. And we're gonna sing this song together one more time. And you can sit, you can stand. But I ask you this morning to stay. I don't do this all the time. I don't get offended. Those of us with young kids that like to get out of here, but again, someone is watching your children, and it's not you, and it's free. Why are you leaving? Amen. Do you know how long I stay here on Sundays? I'm like, does anyone else need to talk? Anyone? I mean, I love my kids, but I'm with them a lot. Like, oh anyone want to pray? I'll pray with you. Do you want the new? Do you guys want the new? All right. Then let's pray together. Let's pray this together. Lord, we are saying as your church, as your people, we want something new. The old is not fine. We don't hunger for the old. We will not be people set in our ways. We will not be people who are rigid and stiff. We will not be people who believe we understand. We will not be people who believe that we know what we need to know. We will be people who say we are yours. You are the potter, we are the clay. Shape us, mold us however you desire. We give you control. We surrender control. We give you control. We die to ourselves. Because we want the new life that you promise to spring forward within us, Lord. We want the new life that you promise to take over. So, Lord, make us new wineskins this morning. Make us your vessels. Make us an offering to you, Lord. Make us whatever you want us to be. And Lord, I pray right now, if there's one person in this room that doesn't know you, that hasn't experienced this newness in life, if there's one person in this room, Lord, that has held back from you for whatever reason, even if those reasons are good, even if they've encountered tragedy and hardship and they they struggle to trust you, Lord. I pray that right now they would surrender their heart and they would say, God, I'm yours. I belong to you. Pour new wine into my life, do a new thing in me. Because I need it, Jesus. We all need it. We are your people, and we're saying, Lord, we want the new. The old is old. We want the new. We love you, Lord. It's in your name we pray. Amen.